Oops. Data on 2.9 million Adobe users has been stolen from Adobe’s servers in a pretty big security breach. The data stolen was encrypted, but it’s probably a good idea to change your Adobe password at the very least!
Definitely one of the big risks of continued growth online commerce and paid cloud services…

Canon have been promising super low light capabilities for a while now. Here’s a demo, which is an interesting step, considering that they usually announce new breakthroughs in the form of actual products rather than technology previews.

Hopefully they’ll be able to roll this tech out into some affordable cameras soon. Quite impressive.

Camera makers are really struggling to come up with new ideas now that it’s painfully clear that mobile phones are in the process of completely obliterating the traditional point and shoot camera market. Mobile phones offer the unstoppable combination of good enough image quality and always-there convenience. After all, how many people want to carry more than one device?

Sony’s trying to come up with something new to combat this, with an external mini camera to be used with mobile phones. It’s a clever idea, but I just don’t see it making much of a dent, really. The cameras still have the cost and bulk problems… But definitely points for trying!

For my book the Lens I was able to track down one of the actual Carl Zeiss f/0.7 lenses purchased and modified by Stanley Kubrick to shoot indoor scenes lit only by candlelight for his film Barry Lyndon. (he bought 3 of the 10 such lenses that Zeiss produced) Here’s my photo of the incredible lens.

Now, shamelessly using Kubrick’s name, German rental firm P+S Technik has bought one of these legendary lenses and has modified it for use with modern digital video cameras. And they’re available for you to rent today at insane prices! Note that, despite the name, the lens they acquired isn’t one of Kubrick’s - those remain the property of the Kubrick archives.

Of course, with today’s fast ISO it’d be a bit bonkers to rent this lens. The depth of field is insanely thin. Kubrick had to get his actors to sit completely motionless for his famous candlelight scenes in Barry Lyndon. Kubrick’s producer Jan Harlan also mentioned to me that the lenses tended to have focus problems when tilted away from the horizontal, so they could only pan and dolly track. But if you want to follow in the footsteps of a technically amazing filmmaker, I guess now you can!

So the other proverbial shoe has dropped. There will never be an Adobe Creative Suite 7. Software boxes are gone.

Instead, Adobe is moving to a purely subscription-based model. Everyone’s going to have to pay monthly. Very interesting, with a lot of pros and cons for the user. The company is also introducing a couple of new hardware products - a wireless pen and ruler. (though the latter promotes the incorrect myth that Napoleon was a short man. Tsk!)

Well. This is an interesting development! Sigma have announced a new 18-35mm f/1.8 lens. That’s right - f/1.8 in a zoom lens. It’s only for subframe DSLRs and not full frame (easier to illuminate the smaller sensor area), but it’s still a remarkable technical achievement. The lens is a bit on the short side - it’d have been really useful for portraiture if it were a bit longer - but considering what they’ve produced, I’m not surprised. Guess we’ll see what the quality and pricing are going to be!